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Funny how it’s the Impreza WRX Challenge but all the cards on site were the Subaru Legacy.

I took part with no expectations, though was hoping that I beat my previous time of 23 hours 52 minutes.

I don’t know whether it was a sign that I got the same spot as I did in 2007, but this time, the car was situated much further back and I had the privilege of hiding under the shadows of Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza. That granted me a lot of shade from the afternoon sun, I was only exposed to direct sunlight for less than 3 hours.

On top of that, it rained heavily in the afternoon. I don’t know about the rest, but I was really shivering because it was too cold. My clothes were heavily soaked with rain water, and the cold wind blowing through my clothes was unbearable. Half my mind was telling me to give it up, but I guess a lot of people were looking forward to dropping by, so that gave me something to look forward to.

That was when I wished I had been exposed to direct sunlight. It would have helped to dry my clothes better, but the rain stopped only after 4pm and half the sun was already beginning to set. If I am ever given a choice to be left in the extreme cold or heat, I would certainly look back on this experience to make my decision.

A lot of my friends dropped by, including some whom I have not seen in ages! Both my sisters dropped by too, and they bumped into each other there. This wasn’t planned at all.

I have an upcoming exam on Tuesday, so I was planning to leave by Sunday afternoon. My only question was when to leave.

I was thinking to myself, if it rains again at night, I will be gone for sure. I don’t want to put myself through the cold again, but otherwise, I probably would want to leave at a good timing.

I was thinking of leaving at the 14th hour, but I held on.
I thought of leaving again at the 15th hour, and the Chinese guy in front of me left, but I decided to hold on.
I thought of leaving again at the 16th hour, but I continued to hold.. And decided that I should leave at 16:16:16.

I said my goodbyes to the rest of the contestants on my car, and waited for the clock to countdown.

At 16:16:16 sharp, I attempted to lift my palm but the tall malay guy standing beside me pushed my palm firmly on the decal. He didn’t let me go. After all, we chatted with each other so much for the past 16 hours and supported each other in various ways. We gave each other massages, took turns to stretch, and signalled each other if a marshaller was approaching.

I told him that I really had to go, and so I counted down again, and left at 16:17:18.

I was just in the competition for fun.
I had no intentions of staying for long, and yeah, I enjoyed myself while it lasted. 🙂

(The tall malay guy beside me is still in the competition after 36 hours. I wish him all the best.)

Everybody’s talking about Yue Yue, the 2 year old girl that was knocked down by a van, and it took nearly 20 passers-by before someone went to her aid. The surveillance recording of the incident went viral on social media platforms, and netizens are quick to condemn the moral decay of China.

My initial thought, what the hell is the kid doing in the middle of a dimly-lit road?
I have not found the answer to that question, but I did make several other observations.

Firstly, I believe local netizens are biased to begin with. Let’s admit it. We all hate China because of what the mainland Chinese are doing in our country. Taking this pre-conceived prejudice into the situation isn’t going to help the Chinese much.

These kind of incidents can happen anytime and anywhere. Indifference is nothing new. It didn’t just have to be China. An online search resulted in a similar incident happening last year in New York, except that the victim was not a little child.

Which leads me to my next point, another reason why everybody is so worked up is because social media platforms easily allow them to all agree that the passers-by are heartless because the victim is a little kid who can’t defend herself. Would it have been the same if the victim was a 31-year old man?

Moreover, the streets of China are littered with con artists, pickpockets, scammers and thieves. How can anybody be so sure that this little girl is not a prop used by any syndicate? The passers-by are also wary for their own safety, right?

To top it off, China does not have a culture that embraces gratitude. The victims would usually want to get the most of out the situation, and are likely to sue whoever they can associate with, including those who helped them. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Again, it didn’t have to be China, a certain Thai wanted to sue a public transport operator for $4 million too.

Hence, all these led me to think that Singaporeans shouldn’t be too shallow and base their criticism on things that they only know on the surface. I tweeted a summary of my thoughts and from the response I received, it became obvious to me that some people took offense at my lack of sensitivity.

I don’t mean to offend anyone. I just hope to present the side of things and ideas that are often ignored. If you are not convinced, then I apologize for your lack of an open mind.

It is a bittersweet feeling. I spent most of my time at the UB carnival last week and it struck me that I will no longer be seeing all these people after this year. As much as we try to keep in touch, it ia a well-known fact that we will never be as close as before.

On the other side of things, I have also started looking for a job. A few of my friends sent out their resumes earlier this year, and they took as long as 3-4 months before somebody finally responded. I managed to find some really attractive job offers, but I am certain that when my time comes next year, what I get may not necessarily be what I want, since many others would be vying for the same positions.

Well, if there is one thing I learnt this year, it is to take one step at a time.

People thought I would be struggling with 17 credits, but nope, I am managing and coping well.
I only have 6 more weeks to go.

I finally understood why some photographers go through all the trouble to watermark their photos before making them available for viewing.

Over the past week, I noticed how easy it is for people to just go through photos, right-click, save, and upload these pictures as their own. This is especially easy when the photos are uploaded on Facebook. For the recent Nike race, I saw tons of photos getting ripped from the original uploader’s albums with no credits given. (Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I limit all my albums to ‘Friends Only’ even though it still doesn’t help much.)

It’s so sad to see people taking ownership of things that doesn’t belong to them. Well done! Damn thieves!

For my photos, I should just impose a huge watermark over the subject’s faces.

It’s been a while since I participated in any race. The last time was in Kuala Lumpur’s Standard Chartered where I did an easy 21km.

I did not set any target for today’s 10km race, but I was looking at 47-48 minutes.

Weather was cool after last night’s rain and very ideal for running. There was a good grip on my Nike LunarGlides and it certainly prevented me from slipping on the wet ground, especially when the race route consisted of 3 very sharp U-turns.

I ran together with a female team mate. We clocked 4:30 for the first 1km, and I felt that the pace wasn’t right. It was a bit too uncomfortable, so we adjusted our tempo and ran at a more comfortable pace.

We didn’t really know who was setting the pace. I thought I was following her pace, but turned out that she was actually following me, so somehow, we maintained a very consistent pace for the first 8km before she started to slow down and I pulled ahead of her.

She still managed to came in 9th for the women’s category.

I managed to clock a reasonable timing too, but I will definitely do better in my next 10km race in December.

Someone asked me out today. Her invitation was so out of the blue that I thought she had an ulterior motive behind it, like maybe she was trying to sell me some insurance policy.

But nope, there were no hidden agendas. She genuinely wanted to catch up and spend time.

She was the first girl I was ever serious with. Back then, I was only 15.
Nothing happened between the both of us, and I moved on after 3 years when she got together with someone else.

Fast forward 6 years later, so many things have changed but our friendship remains.

We’ve known each other for almost a decade now, yet there were still so many things to laugh at and so many things to smile about. We shared about our recent happenings and honestly, I valued her opinions because she spoke a lot of sense to me. (Not that she managed to change my perspective of things, but what she said did create an impact.)

She’s a great friend and I am glad we managed to maintain this friendship.
I hope that I can do the same for E too, because friendship always triumphs.